Believe No One (29 page)

‘He used a false address to get his driver's licence, so the documents he used as proof of ID could also be false – Holsten could be one of several aliases,' Dunlap said. ‘We'll just have to hope something turns up on the haulage-company canvass.'

‘I've been talking to one of my doctoral students,' Fennimore said. ‘It's a long shot, but he thinks we should trawl online forums and emails for key words and phrases relating to what the killer's been doing to his victims.'

Dunlap shook his head regretfully. ‘We just don't have the manpower.'

‘It wouldn't take much – just some technical know-how. Josh tells me there's a program called a “spider” – it does the searching for you.'

Dunlap turned to Dr Detmeyer. ‘Can the FBI help with this?'

‘Of course.' Detmeyer hesitated. ‘It might take a day or two to get the okay, set it up …'

‘We don't
have
a couple of days,' Dunlap said. ‘We want any chance of saving Riley Patterson, we need to take action
now.
' He sought out the Team Adam consultant, his dark eyes glowing. ‘Mr Whitmore?'

Whitmore already had his cell phone in his hand. ‘We got techs,' he said. ‘I don't see why not.'

Tulk residence, Williams County, Oklahoma

Waylon has done as she told him and rounded up his brothers, and Marsha Tulk can tell by the looks on their faces that her boys have had a quiet talk on the way over to the house.

Harlan looks around the big living room. ‘Where is he?'

‘Haley took the boy down to Elm Creek, see if they can hook a few catfish for supper,' his momma says. ‘Which will allow us to talk freely about what's to be done.'

She knows without a word being said that her sons think she should take the boy in to the sheriff's office, but none of them wants to be the first to say it.

She runs through the newsreel, even though Waylon has no doubt told it all, and by the end of it they all look sick.

‘All this hoo-ha on our property – why'm I getting to hear about it on the news?' She looks at Tyler: he is the one who collects the weekly takings from the manager's office at Lambert Woods, so he's on the park more than the others.

‘I can't be two places at once, Momma – I was out, working on the grows. Sammy tried my cell phone, but you know what reception is like over on the east side.'

Sammy was the park manager.

‘Well, why didn't he call
me
?'

‘He did, Momma.'

She felt a pang of guilt – she was always leaving the darn thing someplace or other.

‘Anyway, they're there, now,' she said.

‘They're bound to come up here asking questions,' Bryce says. He is the second youngest and the worrier in the family.

Harlan jerks his head towards the map on the TV screen. ‘They found her body forty miles east on I-44,' he says. ‘That's got to be where they'll look for the boy.'

For once Marsha thinks Bryce's anxieties are warranted, so she says, ‘You think so? Because there seems to be a whole
squad
of police, right on our doorstep, and
not
forty miles down the road, son.'

Harlan
tsked
and shook his head. ‘I knew we should've sent that boy on his way.'

She narrows her eyes. ‘I don't recall you saying that, Harlan. What I
do
recall is Haley saying she wanted to keep him and you not raising any objections. I recall this same child climbed into your car and Bryce's pickup two different times, and neither one of you had the slightest notion he was there.'

‘Just proves my point,' Harlan says. ‘The boy is slippery.'

‘He's doing what he can to survive,' she says.

‘Even so, he will bring trouble on us.'

‘Already has.' This from Tyler, who will rarely lead a conversation, but will say the
Amens
from the sidelines.

‘It wasn't the boy brought the authorities here, it's this mullet-haired man calls himself Will. They're here because he took that boy's momma, and he killed her.' None of them will meet her eye. ‘But like Tyler said, trouble is here, one way or another, so what do we do about it?'

‘Ain't none of our business,' Waylon says with a shrug.

‘None of our business? None of our
business
?' When Marsha Tulk gets mad, she does not get shrill like most women, she roars – strong and loud as any man. ‘Pay attention, boy. The news anchor said they're looking into other murders. We rented a trailer to a goddamn
serial killer
.'

‘Momma, c'mon,' Tyler says. ‘How was we supposed to know?'

She laughs. A hard, cracked sound. ‘When they come knocking on our door you're gonna need something stronger than a plea of
stupidity,
boy.'

‘I checked with Sammy,' Tyler says. ‘He did not sign the rental agreement – Sharla Jane Patterson did.'

‘Well, that's something,' she says. ‘Did any of you see him?'

The brothers exchange glances and the other three shake their heads, but Tyler says, ‘From a distance. He wasn't around much, she paid the rent regular, wasn't no trouble – I didn't have no cause to go over there.'

She nods. ‘We tell the police that – the part about him being elusive – not the part about the pot grows, of course.' She allows herself a smile.

‘You think that's going to be enough to send them on their way?' Harlan says.

‘Why not?'

‘Like you said, they didn't find those children with their mommas, and all those agencies camping out on our front yard are not going away until they have searched our woods.'

‘No, they are not. But they got no call looking for the boy anywhere but Lambert Hill in back of the trailer park. We got one pot grow in the woods over there. That's maybe seventy plants – which is what? Twelve per cent loss on the entire crop – tops. Wheat farmers lost a darn sight more'n that in the drought last year.'

‘We planted those crops and tended them for two months, Momma, and you're telling us to rip 'em out and what – burn 'em?'

‘You know I'm not saying that. You boys got plenty of time to lift the crop. Do it right, we might even be able to replant it.'

‘They might could've already headed into those woods,' Bryce says. ‘And if we can't get to the grows before the cops find them, we could lose a lot more than twelve per cent – we could go to jail, Momma.'

She flapped one hand, waving away his worrying. ‘We'll wrestle that hog when it breaks cover.'

‘There's serious investment gone into those grows in seed, equipment and operating costs – not to mention the time and labour every one of us has put in.' This is Harlan, trying to be the businessman. ‘We stand to lose – thousands.'

Unreasonable though it is, Marsha Tulk is astonished by her sons' ignorance of their finances. She keeps them in the dark about the monetary side of their businesses, because she thinks if they knew how much they were worth it would turn their heads. Bryce and Waylon are apt to be lazy, and a man is only a man so long as he has meaningful work to do.

Even now she holds back, but can't help showing her irritation. ‘Anyone would think you boys did the harvesting and selling with your eyes shut and your minds on something else.'

Harlan stares at her. He is sharper than the others, and she can see him recalculating the value of their crops in his head. ‘You're prepared to throw that kind of money away on some trailer-park kid?' he says.

‘Well, listen to Mr High-and-Mighty Harlan Tulk – if that boy is trailer-park trash, what are we – The Folks Who Live On the Hill?'

‘I never said he was—'

‘Did you forget what we grow up in the woods, Harlan? We come from a long line of bushwhackers and bootleggers – so don't tell me that child don't matter because he's
trailer trash.
'

‘I'm not, Momma, truly, I'm not. But listen to me: if the cops come looking – and they will – we're going to lose crops.'

‘Damnit, Harlan, what turned you into such an old woman?' She sees she has offended him, and, trying to be reasonable, she takes a breath and says, ‘If it makes you feel better, you can put up new warning signs. That should slow them down – all we need is enough time to take the grows out before they get to 'em.'

‘What the hell?' Waylon throws up his hands. ‘Just give 'em the boy, Momma, they won't have cause to send in no search party.'

She rounds on him, fists swinging. ‘I have
never
turned
anybody
in to the police my
entire life.
' The rap and crack of her bare knuckles on Waylon's head and back give emphasis to her words.

‘Okay, Momma, okay,' Harlan says, getting between them, but not raising his hands to her even in defence, because that is something
he
has never done and never will, not where his momma is concerned.

She squares up to him, her face red and blotched from the heat and her fury.

‘I feel sorry for him,' Harlan says. ‘Truly, I do. Haley is fond of him and I can see why. But that boy is not kin.'

‘That boy has just lost his momma,' she says, ‘most likely to the first man in his life that he trusted. Red has stayed alive because he got gone, and we are going to help him stay gone until the man who killed his momma is locked up, or dead.'

When Haley and the boy come home a couple of hours later, she calls him into the living room with all her boys around her to tell him he can stay if he has a mind to. She wants him and them both to understand that she will not have dissent on this.

‘But you need to understand,' she says, ‘in this household, dog don't hunt, dog don't eat.'

‘I can work,' he says, eager. ‘I could water the pot grows, mix up the fertilizer.'

‘That's quite a lot of work for a boy to do,' she says.

‘I don't mind – I could maybe earn some pocket money?' He winces as he says it, but she laughs.

‘Son, you are a natural businessman, and I like a boy who is willing to make himself useful.'

Waylon grunts. He is still sulking from the chastisement he received for telling her they should turn the boy in.

She pays him no mind and looks instead at her second son, Bryce. He hates sweat labour, is built too heavy for hot days out in the woods.

‘Think you could show the boy how, Bryce?' she said.

Bryce shrugs. ‘I could show him, doesn't mean he'd learn.'

‘I'm a real quick study,' the boy says.

Bryce shakes his head, doubtful. ‘It isn't just the work. Out at the pot grows it's all sweat and skeeters – and if the skeeters don't getcha, the ticks will.'

Marsha nods, sympathizing – her boy just about got ate alive tending their crops.

‘I don't mind,' Red says. ‘Bugs don't bother me. Momma says I'm too full of bile, makes my blood bitter.'

The way his face creases, Marsha can tell that he realized he had talked about his momma as if she was still around, but she is not about to point that out to him. She just taps his knee, says, ‘Well, now. Seems to me the Lord gave you a blessing, and it would be a sinful waste not to make good use of it.'

Fergus has received a text. One word: ‘Email.'

He hasn't heard from Will since yesterday, when he had the nerve to pull the Internet connection. He feels cut off from a part of his brain. The undifferentiated, lizard part, admittedly; the part that acts on impulse rather than reason. But still …

For twenty minutes he resists, but he can't stand it – he needs to know. He snatches his laptop from his briefcase. His programs and files are password-protected, encrypted, safe, but the Atlantic Ocean and half the American continent stands between him and safety right now.

Swiftly, he navigates to their shared webmail account. Clicks to the ‘password' box, types in a sequence of numbers, letters and symbols. He hesitates. What if it's a trap? Dread creeps up his spine, raising goose pimples.

He shakes his head. The big numpty wouldn't know a Trojan Horse from a rocking horse. He hits the send key and the inbox opens.

There's a single message in the drafts folder. Subject line: ‘Unfinished Business'.

He opens the draft. No message, only a URL and a password. Just as they did in the early days, live-streaming the kills to the web.

His hands are shaking. He is not used to feeling powerless. He takes a breath, copies and pastes the web address into the search line, enters the password in the dialogue box.

Sharla Jane is taped and wrapped like a parcel. A pink, mewling special delivery. He sits forward in his armchair, feeling sick with dismay but also excited. Because even as he gave the order to shut down, to get rid of her and get out, he had mourned the wasted months they'd spent preparing her. He'd felt cheated that he wouldn't see her at the last.

He watches, irritated, as the mullet-headed cretin gets in the way of camera sight lines and makes a mess of using the weights. His feelings rapidly turn to contempt, watching his accomplice's frantic attempts at resuscitation.

Then Will picks up the hypodermic.
Oh, for pity's sake – is that what this is all about? He wants to play nursey all over again?

Even so, he doesn't look away for a second; he has to admit, he wants to see how far his protégé will go without the normal checks and balances exerted over his grosser tendencies.

And when Will turns his masked face to the camera and says, ‘Do you want me to stop?' Fergus recoils; it's as if the dumb fucker knows what he's thinking. Despite himself, he says, ‘No.'

A second later, the kill screams; he sees the blade in Will's hand and he's on his feet yelling, ‘No-no-no – No!'